OK, I just got #sd'd# in a game, and I'm not sure why my pod didnt flee, I'm hoping someone can explain it. I was gridding and got photoned either on warpout to the sector I got shot from, or they plocked and brought planet in under me. Either way, I was sitting in a sector with enemy planet under me and with corp figs adjacent. The enemy planet was only L4, so no PIGs. Anyways, one of the baddies ran a shipcap script and captured my ship. Now my understanding was that in the absence of IGs and with corp figs adjacent, my pod should have fled. For whatever reason, this didnt happen, and they got my pod too. I'm clueless as to why I didnt flee, I'd appreciate any ideas as to why this happened.

Well I'll fill in the rest.
Psion got photoned on warpout of a 3 way into a 3 way, I had figs in 2 of the 3 warps (his obviously were he came from). He called in a planet, landed, lifted. I capped, IG caught his ship once (ship IG, no PIG), and than second wave podded. His pod only could have gone back. Only theories I have are...
A.) games marked photon sector as bad
B.) Landing changed that

Jhereg

Dr. Bad wrote an excellent description of pod management that describes where and how TWGS tries to flee your pods. The link is: http://www.tw-cabal.com/strategy/podlocations.html

But basically when your podded by another player the will pick somewhere between 3 and 20 random sectors to flee your pod along. It sounds like your pod only had 1 route to follow back out of that area and the Jhereg had most of the 3-ways surrounded. In this case if all of the random sectors that it tried to flee you to happened to be blocked or behind his corps figs and not yours (it doesn't try to plot around figs - just direct paths) then the game would act as if your pod was surrounded and doesn't move your pod. Hope that helps a little - but I'd suggest you read the full article as its really helpful.

I've been caught by the same error in the past - not much you can do.

There is a way to get the pod to safety.
Tow ship that will/might be podded to sector A, beside sector B, that you want to enter/invade. Twarp/move to a safe area C ( fed or behind your wall). X to the ship in A. Enter sector B, invade/whatever, you get podded. Pod will twarp to safety in C, even if fig blocked en route.

quote:Originally posted by RammaR

Dr. Bad wrote an excellent description of pod management that describes where and how TWGS tries to flee your pods. The link is: http://www.tw-cabal.com/strategy/podlocations.html

But basically when your podded by another player the will pick somewhere between 3 and 20 random sectors to flee your pod along. It sounds like your pod only had 1 route to follow back out of that area and the Jhereg had most of the 3-ways surrounded. In this case if all of the random sectors that it tried to flee you to happened to be blocked or behind his corps figs and not yours (it doesn't try to plot around figs - just direct paths) then the game would act as if your pod was surrounded and doesn't move your pod. Hope that helps a little - but I'd suggest you read the full article as its really helpful.

I've been caught by the same error in the past - not much you can do.

Right Kav, that works if your planning on being podded you can chose where the pod should go as long as you get podded by your own actions. But where Psion was out gridding and got photoned by Jhereg he was sorta stuck.

I'd love to see the logic behind Pod fleeing, and need to test Kav's theory. What I had been told was that pods are ONLY to flee through non blocked routes. By that definition, it almost seems a bug in what Kav is describing. But, I know in some older version u could atmosphere land and find your pod at terra, so that could be fixed also.

Jhereg

Yep, Kav's suggestion works - as long as you are podded by your own actions, like when landing on a planet or on sector entry. If its an enemy who pods you then that rule doesn't apply and twgs tries to flee you to a random sector.

Nod RammaR. The way I understood Dr. Bad's article, if your own actions cause you to die, then your pod retreats to its "previous sector" which can be manipulated via various tricks. If someone else kills you, then your pod goes through the flee routine.

In the situation kav decsribes, if you pod yourself (cannon, port, haz, etc), your pod will end up back in sector A, since that is the sector you moved from. That will be marked as "previous sector." However, when podded ship2ship, "previous sector" doesn't influence pod flees. Likewise, it can't be a straight "no place 3 to 20 hops" to flee to, either. If you remove all figs and mines from a sector adj to where you're podded, your pod will flee to that empty sector at the least. However, in the exact same universe, if you have a fig down there (corp or personal) and are podded in the exact same way, your pod will not go there. Basically, it's buggy, but I've never been able to reproduce the exact conditions in a test game to make it not flee. It makes it hard to fix.

quote:Originally posted by RammaR

Yep, Kav's suggestion works - as long as you are podded by your own actions, like when landing on a planet or on sector entry. If its an enemy who pods you then that rule doesn't apply and twgs tries to flee you to a random sector.


I found it accidently almost 10 years ago, pre TWGS. Positioned a moth, too much beer, twarping and X ing all over the place for a couple minutes before I finally made it back to the moth. Thought I was hallucinating until I read capture log next day.

dr. bad did a great article.
a must read.
i've done *some* testing on my own, and there are *some* certainties in podding, and yet still *some* randomness.
i think its like everything else in the game, a little built in random factor to add ****e.